Recently, a pair of researchers at Emory University and the
University of Minnesota set out to extend these findings by
measuring the relationship between how much money you have and
how social you are.

They found that the wealthier you are, the less time you
spend socializing.

For the study, cited
on Vox, the researchers looked at two huge sets of data:
Nearly 30,000 respondents from the General Social Survey, which
has been administered to American adults once or twice a year
since 1972, and nearly 90,000 people who responded to the
American Time Use Survey between 2002 and 2011.

Surveys asked people to indicate their household income as well
as how often they spent time with relatives, neighbors, and
friends.

The researchers controlled for factors like living arrangements
and childcare so as to make sure, for example, that lower-income
people didn't spend more time with relatives and neighbors simply
because they didn't have the funds to afford their own house or a
babysitter.

Results indicated that people with higher incomes spent fewer
total evenings socializing and a smaller portion of their day
with others.

Specifically, the General Social Survey showed that people with
high incomes (defined as about $125,000) spent about 217 evenings
socializing a year, compared to about 223 evenings for
people with low incomes (defined as about $40,000).

Meanwhile, the American Time Use survey showed that people with
high incomes (defined as about $105,000) spent about 10 minutes
more alone a day than people with low incomes (defined as
about $12,000).

Interestingly, when the researchers broke it down by social
category, they found that even though higher-income people spent
less time with relatives and neighbors, they spent more
time with friends.

You no longer have to ask a neighbor to look after your
home while you're on vacation — just use an alarm
system.Universal

It's impossible to say for sure why richer people spend less time
with family and neighbors, but the researchers behind the study
have some ideas.

As study coauthor Emily Bianchi told
Vox, some of us can now pay for things that we used to
rely on family and neighbors for. Think a home-alarm system
instead of having a neighbor or relative look after your home
while you're away, for example.

Bianchi also told Vox that as Americans get wealthier, we could
see more "individualization." In other words, people may end up
interacting less with others and become less involved in their
communities.

There are two caveats to keep in mind here. First, the
researchers acknowledge that they can't necessarily prove that
high incomes cause people to spend less time with others
— only that the two are linked.

Second, it's important to note that the surveys don't measure
loneliness — which can be very different from spending a
lot of time alone. So these findings don't necessarily imply that
you're doomed to misery once you make a lot of money.

At the same time, it's worth keeping these findings in mind as
your wealth increases. If spending time with family and neighbors
is something you value highly, you can be proactive about making
sure those connections don't weaken over time.